Want a truly thriving, collaborative intranet environment? The solution isn't just about pushing out more content; it's about strategically empowering the people who already love your platform. Using intranet champions is the key—they can be turned into the most trusted, influential users who can personally bring your entire organization on board.

In this article, we'll give you specific, actionable steps you need to find, equip, and scale a powerful champion network.

Before you start

Before you begin recruiting your champions, make sure your groundwork is solid:

• You have clear intranet adoption goals: Clearly define what success on your intranet means to you so you can effectively leverage your champions to make a real impact. This way, your champion program becomes a real business solution rather than just an activity.
• You have leadership approval and support: Ensure senior leaders understand the program is a culture-building and engagement initiative. Get their commitment to provide public recognition and support, as this is crucial for the champions' perceived value.
• You have confirmed analytics or reporting tools are ready: Prepare to measure the effectiveness of your champion network using analytics. This data is essential to justify and scale the program.
• You have a few active users or communities on your platform: Confirm you have active users or communities to make champion recruitment easier. This ensures you can select people who have already demonstrated influence and passion for the platform.

Phase 1: Recruit your core champions

Your champion network is built on the strength of your first group. While identifying your champions involves a little hands-on effort, it's truly the key to your success.

Find potential champions

To find your core champions, you need to identify employees who are already natural connectors and trusted experts in your organization. 

• Social Expert: Contact managers and team leaders across all departments. Ask them two specific, revealing questions:
  1. "Who on your team is the person everyone goes to when they need help finding information (on the intranet or off)?" (= a trusted resource).
  2. "Who is the person who is always sharing interesting links or ideas in team meetings, even if it's not strictly work-related?" (= a natural connector).
• Kudos Receiver: Run general intranet searches for phrases like "thanks to," "shout-out," or "great idea" in comments or posts. This manually uncovers users who are consistently being praised or referenced as helpful experts.
• Peer-to-Peer Influencer: Dedicate specific time (e.g., one hour per week) to manually review user profiles and their personal timelines to identify active users across the intranet. A user who is highly active on smaller, internal team pages or other users' timelines is acting as a crucial information bridge within their close circles.
• Community Driver: Identify the communities that are not directly related to a mandated project or department (e.g., a "Runners Club" or "Innovation Ideas" group). The person who started, maintains, or is active in these is a natural champion.
• Content Creator: Look at the top timeline posts from the past month with the highest engagement rate. A high ratio means the post sparked a genuine reaction, which might indicate the creator has a knack for engagement. Go through the posts to find the ones created by individual users instead of pages/communities.

Ask them to join

Once you have your list of candidates, you need to recruit them with a formal, appealing offer that clarifies the value of their contribution.

• Interview Filter: If you have many potential candidates, conduct a brief, informal chat about the intranet before sending the official invitation. Their practical ideas and enthusiasm will confirm their Champion status.
• "Rule of Three" for Diversity: Make sure your final choice includes diverse areas of the business to maximize impact: a Leadership or high-visibility role, a front-line or operations role, and a proven social connector. Include individuals from various departments and locations.
• Formalize the Ask: Present the role as a recognized "Intranet Advisory Role," setting an expectation for a manageable but high-impact commitment (e.g., "30 minutes per week"). The feedback they provide will help shape your intranet. Emphasize how this role will be recognized by leadership and in performance discussions.

Phase 2: Equip and empower the network

A champion's mission is essentially to subtly promote the idea that "The intranet is the best tool ever!", almost like a gentle cheer for it. Success depends on simplifying the champions' work and focusing their energy on high-value tasks that naturally pull others into the platform.

Train champions as mentors

You need to teach your champions how to mentor others directly or indirectly so that they can inspire their colleagues to participate on the intranet.

• "Coach's Playbook": Conduct a brief training session focused on teaching others. This involves showing champions exactly where to find the public, company-wide "How-To" resources (e.g., "The official video is on the IT page"). This empowers them to direct colleagues rather than doing the work for them.
• Authenticity Coaching: Train champions to avoid corporate jargon. Coach them to write in a personal, informal voice and to prioritize "showing vs. telling." Encourage them to use simple, personal photos (of whiteboards, team lunches, etc.) instead of rigid, official graphics.
• Outside the Digital: Coach champions to actively listen during informal, in-person discussions. If a colleague shares a great insight, a key lesson learned, or a small win, the champion's job is to use simple, peer-to-peer encouragement like, "Hey, you should totally share that in the XX community/page—everyone needs to see it". This immediately and informally bridges the gap between valuable offline chat and online content.

Give champions a toolkit

Build a private community for your champions where they can exchange ideas, celebrate successes, and feel connected to the network. House these toolkit resources there:

• Content Bank: Create a content library (wiki app) with copy-paste-ready text for various internal situations (e.g., a "New Project Kickoff" announcement, a "Friday Fun Question," or a "Congratulations on Your Service Anniversary" post). The goal is to remove the "what do I say?" hurdle.
• Conversation Starters: Provide a list of open-ended questions and prompts specific to current company events, holidays, or internal projects (e.g., "What's the most surprising thing you learned at the All-Hands meeting yesterday?" or "Share your favorite photo from the team offsite/company retreat/other event"). This gives them a supply of timely, organic content ideas.
• FAQ Cheat Sheet: Create a dedicated wiki with answers to the top 10 most common user questions (e.g., "How do I update my profile photo?" or "Where is the vacation request form?"). Equipping them to answer these questions instantly establishes them as reliable, helpful experts for their team.

Provide your champions with actionable tasks

Give your champions specific, small, high-impact "missions" that focus their time effectively.

• "Peer-to-Peer" Mission: Ask champions to spend 15 minutes a week personally showing one less-active colleague how to complete a simple task on the intranet, such as creating a timeline post. This simple act of peer-to-peer training builds lasting habits.
• "Two-Comment Rule": Challenge champions to leave at least two comments on new posts created by non-champions each week. This simple gesture provides immediate encouragement to new users and sets an example of positive engagement for everyone to follow.
• Departmental "Spotlight Day": Assign a rotating schedule where each champion is responsible for posting one piece of content that highlights the success or work of a different department outside their own. This is a powerful, intentional way to break down organizational silos.
• "Ask an Expert" Tag: Encourage champions to keep an eye on a set of communities and pages, and whenever a knowledge-sharing question comes up, remember to tag the relevant internal expert—not just an admin. This way, knowledge is shared smoothly to the right people, and it helps show that the intranet is a trusted spot for expertise.
• "What Would You Like" Feedback: Ask champions to casually collect input from their peers, like asking, "What would make you use the intranet more?" This approach helps keep the program driven by the users' own suggestions and preferences.

Phase 3: Sustain and scale the program

Your program's sustainability depends on ongoing support, recognizing successes, and listening to feedback to drive continuous improvement. By focusing on the value Champions bring and not just the number of posts they create, you help ensure they stay engaged and committed for the long run.

Retain your champions

To maintain enthusiasm, you need to reward champions with recognition and growth opportunities that go beyond their day-to-day duties.

• Feedback Loop: In "Champion Huddles" or "Champion Feedback Forms," ask: "What's one feature or process we need to fix or clarify on the intranet this month?" and immediately act on the most critical item. This reinforces the value of their decision-making input.
• Leadership Recognition: Have a senior leader, like a VP or Director, personally send a short, public thank-you or kudos to the entire champion group at least twice a year. This highlights their great impacts and appreciated contributions.
• Skill Development Benefit: Offer champions the exclusive opportunity to receive one-on-one executive coaching on influence and leadership. Framing the perk as a career development investment—not just intranet training—rewards their advocacy with a valuable, résumé-boosting skill.
• New Content: Update your content bank quarterly with fresh seasonal, timely, or event-specific prompts to keep everything engaging and exciting for both your current and new champions.

Measure and grow your network

Focus on metrics that are easy to observe. This will help you demonstrate the network's impact and make your efforts to recruit new champions more effective.

• Champion-Driven Metrics: Monitor activity and content metrics from the beginning of your network on a monthly basis. Track and report metrics like Timeline posts, Comments, Creating users, and new communities to showcase their direct impact.
• Champion Rotation: Plan to rotate a portion of your champions every 9-12 months. Have the outgoing Champions personally recommend the next group of advocates, creating a "Second Wave Recruitment" based on proven influence. This prevents burnout, brings in fresh energy, and ensures the network is always growing with trusted individuals.